Europe’s Plans to Test Cars’ Emissions Are Criticized

LONDON — European policy makers moved ahead on Wednesday with plans to begin subjecting cars to on-the-road testing of exhaust emissions, rather than rely solely on laboratory tests.

But despite the furor caused by the Volkswagen scandal over emissions cheating, the officials substantially weakened their plans for the new tests, angering environmentalists and setting up a contentious debate in the European Parliament.

With the new tests, the European Union will be the first governmental body to require pollution screening of cars to be performed outside laboratories. But facing pressure from automakers, a technical panel that met Wednesday agreed to weaken the rules. The tests would initially allow automakers to emit more than twice the current European limits on nitrogen oxides. Under the plan, the tests are to take effect in September 2017 for newly designed car lines, and by September 2019 for all new cars.

The requirements would get tougher by 2021, when all new cars would be required to emit a level of nitrogen oxides that is no more than 50 percent above current limits. European regulators had previously sought to allow automakers to exceed the current regulatory limit by less than 20 percent.

That automakers are being allowed to exceed current regulatory emission limits at all is a concession to reality: The emissions tests that are now being performed in labs do not reflect what actually comes out of tailpipes. Automakers have argued behind closed doors that they cannot meet more realistic emissions tests.

Nitrogen oxides, the air pollutants at issue in the Volkswagen scandal, are a major concern in the emissions of diesel engines, which represent more than half the cars on the road in Europe.

The start of the European tests is being closely watched elsewhere — including the United States, where the government already requires road tests of large trucks, but not cars. Private road tests have shown that cars produce more pollutants on the road than they do in labs, a fact that has been thrown into sharp relief by the Volkswagen scandal. VW has admitted installing software in its diesel vehicles designed to fool laboratory tests.

“The E.U. is the first and only region in the world to mandate these robust testing methods,” Elzbieta Bienkowska, the European commissioner overseeing the effort, said in a statement. “This is not the end of the story.”

The plan agreed to on Wednesday requires approval by the European Parliament, and some members immediately began condemning it.

Bas Eickhout, a Dutch member of the European Parliament, called the agreement “shameful” in a Twitter post, while the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, a centrist bloc in the Parliament, said on Twitter, “We condemn EU Governments decision on new road tests.”

Ms. Bienkowska said that European officials were also working to improve the regulatory system, which has been largely deferred to member states, and to “reinforce the independence of vehicle testing,” which has been seen as lacking in Europe.

Volkswagen’s cheating was disclosed by the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States, and enforcement of vehicle air quality standards has been scant in Europe.

Environmental groups saw the decision Wednesday as a capitulation to the auto industry.

“Citizens will wonder why their governments would rather help carmakers that cheat emissions tests than give them clean air to breathe,” said Greg Archer, clean vehicles manager at Transport & Environment, an environmental group that has been involved in technical planning for the new tests. “This disgraceful and legally questionable decision must be rejected by the European Parliament.”

Europe has been planning the tests since 2011, but they have gained a new urgency after Volkswagen’s revelations. The German automaker said last month that it had installed software aimed at cheating on emissions tests on 11 million diesel vehicles worldwide.

A private study showed that emissions of Volkswagens were as much as 40 times higher than regulatory limits in the United States, which has stricter pollution standards than Europe.

While automakers have publicly supported the new tests since the Volkswagen scandal erupted, they have been lobbying behind the scenes to make them easier to comply with.

The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association said in a statement that it supported a “robust but realistic” testing procedure, adding that the “industry will now have to review the content and implications of the agreed text.”

The group includes most of the world’s major automakers.

Nitrogen oxides, which include nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide, have been linked to a variety of health problems, including asthma attacks, emphysema and bronchitis. A 2010 study sponsored by the London government and conducted by King’s College London attributed nearly 6,000 deaths that year in London alone to long-term exposure to nitrogen dioxide.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section B, Page 3 of the New York edition with the headline: Critics Condemn Weakening of Europe’s Emissions Plan. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe